Thursday, April 14, 2011

What's My Name And Wookie Bean Bags

See all those bikes there behind my oddly shaped head? Those are what's inside my head these days as well. I've been working with Roll It Forward and Boston's Youth Cycling Program, which are both initiatives of Mayor Menino's Boston Bikes. I split my time between plowing through the repair of 100s of bikes, ranging in quality from Magnas with rusty, angular chains to classic GTs hooked up with all the sweet upgrades the 90s had to offer. Roll It Forward procures bikes from various places and distributes them to people in need of bicycles through programs like Boston Bicycle School and the Boston Center For Youth And Families.Youth Cycling Program goes to schools and provides kids with bicycle safety training, utilizing a fleet of bikes donated from places like International Bicycle Center, Wheelworks, EMS, and Giant Bicycles. I fix most of the bikes for RIF and manage the fleets for YCP. I get some help from other RIF and YCP employees, and from volunteers, like the ones who are coming down this Saturday from 10-5. Hey, if you want to come down and volunteer, we'd be glad to have the help. You don't even need to know how to work on bikes, I'll teach you. I'm serious here. Contact link on the sidebar. Seriously.

I'll talk more about all that later and give updates as things go on in that realm, but we have much more important things to discuss today.

When I posted the photo at the top of this post on my Facebook profile, I got a comment saying "What's up Little Lord Fauntleroy?" This is what Little Lord Fauntleroy looks like in real life:

While I was flattered by the comparison, I have a ways to go before I truly resemble LLF. But I did think it would be funny to start a new Twitter hash tag, so I actually just tweeted this:

So whenever you see a picture of someone with Little Lord Fauntleroy hair, tag it #LLF. Screw those guys at Live Literature Funding, we are going to co-opt their fucking hash tag. And yes, I deleted that tweet immediately after I took the screen capture. I'm not completely insane.

And speaking of not being completely insane....anyone else notice that Youtube's Embded function is down today? I hope it's not just me. I wanted to embed Upper Crust's video for the song "Little Lord Fauntleroy" but no dice. You'll have to click on the link or the image to get taken to the rock. Sorry.

My "new look" is really just a result of not shaving my head for a couple months, not a conscious effort to attempt a makeover, my new name, however, is the product of a violent hatred fueled re-branding campaign spearhead by the Magnatron Corporation and Bike 29. I arrived in Waterbury, VT last Saturday night and was immediately told that I had a New name...

T-Hom.

The added hyphen renders the silent H not so silent. Unlike the very clever act of pronouncing the silent H in my name, or, even better, pronouncing the H and adding the P from my last name "THOMP!"or even better still, calling me "Tommy," I actually like this new name. I will feel much more at home racing in single speed races, races like Single Speed-A-Palooza or SSUSA against guys with names like Fuzzy and Dejay and Dax.

I'm running out of time fast here, I'll see if I can't squeeze in a couple more things...

A while back I ran a thing about a Chewbacca on a fixed gear T-shirt over on BikeRumor. And while that is cool, because Chewbacca is cool and fixed gears are cool because they are not-not-bikes, and even a lame bike is better than a not-bike, I gotta say, Mike Joos' version is way better:

And you know what would be really funny about that? Chewbacca literally has a hairy fucking bean bag...because he's a wookie. Hairy beanbags beat beards every time. Maybe the shirt should just say that:

"Hairy beanbags beat beards every time."

Maybe I should go Tweet that too. Like my two Twitter followers aren't confused enough this morning.

This crazy Paris Roubaix video has made the rounds, but it is something everyone should see, so I'm doing my part by posting it. The fact that two people dislike the video on Youtube is confusing to me. Why would you dislike this video? Because you hate awesomeness? "Screw you awesome Paris Roubaix video maker guy, I came down to Youtube today to watch total, stupid crap, not awesomeness. Thanks a lot...pff!"

Last night, after the Rolling It Forward, I went over to JRA Cycles for the NEMBA ride leaders meeting. I have offered myself up as a ride leader for Fells and Burlington Landlocked Rides. One thing to know about my rides: they don't end in the parking lot; they end at the pub. If you only make it back to the parking lot, your ass got dropped. Those will be starting in May some time.

And as I trail off incoherently here, one more thing. After yesterday's BikeRumor post about a single earbud that provides stereo sound...or plays both channels anyway (not sure what the difference is), I got a call from Master Of The Cycling Blog Universe Rich "Dicky" Dillen. He told me that he is deaf in one ear and that this magical earbud is going to change his life. He was crying and it didn't sound like he was wearing pants, which made me uncomfortable, but I was touched by his heart felt thank you nonetheless.

It's really the least I could do after I said that he had "homonculean stature" in my write up about his beautiful Canadian bicycle on the BikeRumors.

OK, show of hands, who wants a "Hey, Chuck Norris can kiss my hairy fucking bean bag, I'm Chewbacca and I'm riding a fucking bike with fucking Millennium Falcons for fucking wheels." T-shirt. It would be a great ice breaker at parties. Probably not at children's birthday parties though.

6 comments:

I'd be down for the shirt... but with "Hairy beanbags beat beards every time." I think that is a much... "classier" statement. Although... with a beard I'm not sure what wearing that statement on a t-shirt would say about myself??

Slow motion, black and white video of Paris Roubaix is cool. Inserting a video clip of your buddy catching air on the cobbles 1:30 into the video isn't cool. Really, what pro tour or continental pro team is riding 2008vintage S-Works shoes?

As one of the two people who didn't "like" the Paris Roubaix clip, let me explain my reasoning. I love the fact that it's Paris Roubaix, it's black and white and slow-motion. What I didn't like was the obviously contrived footage inserted at 1:30 of some non-racer catching air. Take a closer look and answer this: what pro tour or pro continental team sported 2008 vintage s-works shoes at PR? I call shenanigans. Delete the 20 seconds of filler, and I would have given it a thumbs up.

About Big Bikes

I am a Blogger/Writer/Video-hack guy for hire. I write product reviews and other weirdness for BikeRumor. I cover races and do interviews for Cyclingdirt. I come over here to talk weird and curse a lot.